


The Man in the Mirror

by therealmccoy



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealmccoy/pseuds/therealmccoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes McCoy scares himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> This is old work. Originally posted on LJ.

_It's just a glint, really.  
  
A nanosecond's flash of something stirring deep behind hazel eyes.   
  
When you're too tired, too drunk, or you've smoked a little too much of that Andorian grass. Like you've done now._ _Medicinal purposes only. Jesus fucking Christ, you're not a goddamn junkie, but you are a doctor, dammit. You can self-medicate if you fucking want to. It's not like there's anyone more suited than you on this damn ship. Like you'd trust M'Benga or Chapel treat you when you know you can do it better than them. Hell, you could do it better than both of them together even if you were blind and deaf, and just had to feel your way to a diagnosis. __  
  
So when you stumble into your quarters after hours and hours of trauma surgery and hostile encounters that this_ _so-called_ _"peace keeping armada" seems to run into every fucking week,_ _and you still can't get the damn blood off your hands_ _no matter how much you've washed them, you're fully entitled to prescribe yourself something to calm your mind and mute the ghosts of the ones you fail to save. It's medication, not substance abuse.  
  
Whatever you call it, it's times like this when it happens. You wipe away the steam on the bathroom mirror and it's not your own reflection looking back at you. It's you, but somehow, it isn't. It's the eyes. Something so malicious lurking behind them. __You lean in close enough to see yourself in your own dilated pupils and there he is._ _Frowning at you with your own goddamn frown as if he too is wondering why the hell his reflection looks different somehow.  
  
His frown is different because yours is filled with worry and exhaustion, while his is angry and full of disdain. He reeks of hatred and something so sadistic, it almost makes you look away. Except you don't. You look deeper with morbid curiosity, knowing you'll find a man who doesn't care. One who strolls casually past the biobeds in his own sickbay and chooses who gets to live and who doesn't. If he's in a bad mood, he doesn't bother treating any of them. If it's an exceptionally bad day, he doesn't allow for the rest of the medical team to treat anyone either, but dismisses them all and just fucking revels in the pain he's inflicting without having to lift a finger.   
  
You don't even want to think about the kind of pain he can cause when he does make an effort or the joy he gets out of it. __Not that you have to. You've felt that too. The weight that lifts off your shoulders and chest when you let go of everything human and just loose it. It feels good to pour all your pain over on someone else. It's cleansing and liberating and dammit, part of you actually envies him for being like that. __  
  
Part of you wishes you could live life with the same emotional detachment. Not like the Vulcan does it, where he dares stand there and pretend to be better than everyone, claiming he doesn't feel when underneath, he's just as emotionally savage as the wildest of beings. No. Not like that. True indifference. That's what you wish for.  
  
Being able to watch as someone bleeds out on the table in front of you while you're literally holding his heart in your hand, and not. fucking. care. Instead of being haunted by all the what ifs and the maybes. Instead of laying awake for days thinking up surgical procedures that don't even exist yet and then kicking yourself because it might have worked. Instead of that you could just wash your hands and go grab lunch like nothing. God! That's freedom right there.   
  
Fuck! You wish you could be that kind of evil. Reckless and cruel enough to do whatever the goddamn hell you wanted without sparing a second's thought to how that might affect people. Hurt them back when they hurt you, without having to feel the guilt and the shame that would follow. Without caring.  
  
_"Except it's **not you** , Bones. You're better than that." _  
  
You have no idea when Jim entered the room or when you started thinking out loud, but he kisses your shoulder and wraps his arms around you, and it doesn't really matter anymore. He leads you to bed and you follow obligingly, leaving the man in the mirror behind. Because another part of you knows that Jim's right.  
  
He's not you and you are better than that. _ __  


 


End file.
